Romanian workers latest to claim exploitation

Chichis, Romania

Foreign workers continue to come forward with allegations they were pulled into indentured servitude on state-owned forest land, as authorities deny they are responsible for the behavior of subcontractors.

As The Prague Post reported in March (see "Exploited workers demand pay," The Prague Post, March 30, 2011 and "Foreign workers exploited on state land," The Prague Post, March 9, 2011) hundreds of workers have alleged that they worked without pay on state-owned forest land in incidents a human rights activist has termed "the essence of human trafficking."

More recently, The Prague Post paid a visit to the Romanian village of Chichis, where a cadre of men detailed their story, which comes on the heels of parallel allegations by a group of Vietnamese workers.   

Residents of Chichis, a quiet township in central Romania, have an average monthly salary of between 150 and 250 euros, making it ripe ground for predatory employers. Cars share the road with horse-drawn carts, most households have plot of land to grow vegetables, and most residents prefer to speak Hungarian. Until recently, most families relied on subsistence farming.

A group of men from the village say a woman named Marta Pavelová - owner of the company PBM Union Jobs - came in 2010 offering work in Czech forests and promising 1,200 to 1,600 euros per month in salary. Seeing an opportunity for work abroad, the men - Attila, Joska, Sandor and Zsolt, all of whom asked that their surnames be withheld for fear of repercussions - signed up, took a bus to the Czech Republic and began working in the Šumava mountains in July 2010.

Reached on her mobile phone and asked for comment on the allegations, Pavelová hung up.

Sandor described the typical day as beginning at 4 a.m., with a 5-kilometer uphill hike leading to the work site. The men carried some 14 kilograms of equipment, along with 10 liters of fuel plus food and water. A 12- to 13-hour workday peeling the bark off of 12 cubic meters of felled trees followed. The only breaks came when equipment had to be refueled. Often trees higher on the hill were simultaneously being chopped down, Sandor said, giving men below just seconds to react before a tree came crashing down.

Within days, some workers were reaching their breaking point.

"Another group of workers from Romania who had been there for three months rioted because of the lack of pay," Sandor said. "The big boss came and brought contracts and told us to sign them or leave. We asked the boss to bring contracts we could understand. He said he would bring them in three days. He never did."

When shown a series of photographs, the men identified Jindřich Martinák as the so-called "big boss." In an April report, The Prague Post also connected Martinák to the exploitation of Vietnamese workers in state-owned forests.

Zsolt was the first of the Romanian group to leave the Czech Republic, after 19 days. Younger and smaller than the others, he found the work incredibly demanding.

"I went to work one day and tried to lift a big tree," he said. "Afterward, I had a problem with my back. So, I didn't want to go to work because of the pain. Jozef, the supervisor, said if I didn't go to work I'd be kicked out, so I left."

Sandor was the next to leave, as despite working for weeks, the men, who were living in a hotel near the work site, had yet to be paid. Eleven workers refused to go to work. Sandor, who was in a hotel, sick and unable to work, joined them.

Martinák left and returned with some cash, Sandor said, giving him "about half of what I was promised," before he was told to return to Romania.

"Martinák took back 4,000 Kč for food and another 4,000 Kč as deposit for the equipment," Attila said, of being paid about 16,000 Kč for a month's worth of work.  

Attila and Joska, who stayed on after Sandor left, say this was the first and last time either of them received any wages. For the remainder of their stay, they received a 1,000 Kč weekly allowance for food. Eventually, that too stopped.

Joska eventually left as a pre-existing health condition worsened. On the way back, Joska said he traveled with men who were in far worse shape. Some had injuries from the chainsaws. One man had been hit by a falling tree.

"It seemed like a common procedure," he added. "When workers were injured, they were sent home to Romania."

At this point, of the four men The Prague Post spoke with, only Attila remained, as he hoped to get some of the wages he had been promised. Instead, he was evicted from the hotel, along with the other remaining workers.

"I've been waiting for the money for almost a year," said Roman Roušal, who runs U Krále Šumavy, the hotel in question.

Attila was then moved to a cottage and joined a team tasked with operating a wood chipper to clean up remaining branches. The only money they were receiving was the food allowance and money for fuel. The food allowance soon stopped, so the four men had to use some of the fuel money to eat. By October, Attila decided to leave.

The men's contract was with the firm Wood Servis Praha, a copy of which they showed to The Prague Post.

They said Martinák promised them 1,200 euros when he distributed the contracts, although the contract does not list salaries.

While Martinák appears to have been in direct contact with the workers, his name does not appear in connection with Wood Servis Praha in the Commercial Registry. Presently, the executive director for Wood Servis Praha in the registry is Van Tue Dang. Dang is also registered as the director of Gurama Property. Both companies' listed contact numbers are now disconnected.

"We are not responsible for what is happening now in any case," said Zbyněk Boublík, a spokesman for Lesy ČR, the state-owned forest management company responsible for the land where much of the alleged exploitation occurred. "We are doing our best to solve this."

Lesy ČR contracts with partners on the day-to-day maintenance in the forests, and these contractors often subcontract more of the work.

During the course of The Prague Post's investigation into the exploitation of foreign workers, Boublík and Lesy ČR proved evasive in answering questions.

Questioned about which firm Lesy had contracted with for forestry work, Boublík said he could only answer such questions if presented with a specific geographical area. After receiving a more specific request, Boublík said the files containing contractor information were on a computer that was no longer accessible as it was "under repair."

"All we want to and can say we have said," Boublík then said.

Responses like this anger Matouš Jíra, an attorney representing about 145 workers who say they have been exploited in Czech forests.

"It is the duty of a state company not only to solve these problems but to avoid them by not hiring companies with these practices," he said. "Lesy ČR cannot say it is none of their business. As a state company, they cannot do it."

Human rights experts seem to agree as Petra Kutálková, with the anti-human trafficking group La Strada, said the forest incidents make up the country's "most extensive known case regarding labor exploitation and human trafficking for reasons other than prostitution." She also called the case "the essence of human trafficking."

Authorities say they have been investigating the case since allegations surfaced in the media in the spring.

"The police are collecting information, evaluating this information, and from this they will decide whether it is a case of human trafficking," said Pavel Hanták, a spokesman for the Police Organized Crime Unit, adding he could not comment further with an investigation under way.

On a recent visit to Romania, The Prague Post met nearly 40 men that claimed Wood Servis Praha owed them unpaid wages, just as the Vietnamese alleged in April.

Attila was the worker who provided The Prague Post with contact information for the aforementioned recruiter Marta Pavelová, whom he said he regularly called in an attempt to collect back wages.

"Marta would tell me to contact [the supervisor]," he said. "[The supervisor] would tell me to call Marta."

- Šimona Müllerová contributed to this report, and the Open Society Fund contributed travel expenses.

Ryan Scott can be reached at
features@praguepost.com